Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Romantic idea to enjoy this summer: Go to the beach on a cloudy day. Walk the shoreline, picking up shells. Have a picnic while watching the waves.

Blurb: One minute, Hattie Williams is in a museum, sketching a gold necklace that belonged to Hatshepsut, first female Pharaoh of Egypt; and the next, she's lying in a room too archaic to be the museum, with a breathtakingly handsome, half-naked man named Senemut bending over her.

Hattie soon discovers she's been thrust into the body and life of Hatshepsut, with no way back to her own time. Tuthmosis, the heir to the throne, hates her; the High Priest of Amun and the commander of the army want to kill her and Tuthmosis; and the best bathroom facilities in the country are the equivalent of a cat-box.

To make matters more difficult, she's falling helplessly in love with Senemut, and soon, she's not sure she even wants to return home. To protect Tuthmosis from assassination, the lovers arrange to put Hattie on the throne. But, what should she do when she suddenly finds herself, an obscure artist from Chicago, crowned ruler of all Egypt?

Excerpt: Hattie banged on the door. “Is anyone there? Let me out!” She shouted and beat on the door with her palms, but all was ominously silent. If someone had been watching her, they had no intention of helping her out of her dilemma.

At last, resigned to her fate, she returned to her sketchpad. “If I’m going to be stuck in here, I might as well finish my work,” she murmured. “Tom’s bound to come back—I’m sure he will.” Her voice echoed unconvincingly in the dusty, claustrophobic room.

Picking up her pencil, she focused deliberately on copying the tiny hieroglyphics with extreme precision. Gradually, she became absorbed in her work and forgot her predicament. Minutes flowed by with the only sound in the room the scratching of her pencil on the paper.

At last, she completed the final symbol on her detailed drawing and set down her pencil with a twinge of disappointment. She was curiously drawn to the glittering possession of the ancient, yet strangely modern woman. Hatshepsut had ruled Egypt fifteen hundred years before Christ, at a time when women were considered no more important than servants or dogs. How had she managed it?

The vagrant breeze whispered past her face again, leaving a whiff of exquisite perfume in its wake. A rustle, like the caress of costly linen against bare skin, drew her attention. She felt a strong presence, though she knew she was alone in the tiny room.

“Who’s there?” she asked, though she didn’t expect to get a response. The room was too small to hide anyone.

“Touch the necklace.”

Hattie spun around, searching for the source of the barely audible words. “Tom, is that you? If it’s you, I don’t think this is funny! Open the door right now.” She thumped it with her fist for emphasis.

There was no response.

Hattie turned back to the exquisitely fashioned falcon. Maybe it was her overworked imagination playing a trick on her, but the advice seemed sound. Perhaps if she touched the necklace, she could make a connection—psychic, empathic?—with the long-dead monarch. The necklace was strangely compelling, like a long forgotten yet treasured memory.

She reached out slowly, cautiously. As her fingertips gently grazed the golden bird, an electric shock pulsed through her and a sudden wave of dizziness sapped her strength.

“Come to me,” the ghostly voice whispered, stronger now. “Come to me. I have need of you.”

The sweet, cloying scent of incense filled Hattie’s nostrils, and flashes of light exploded behind her eyes. Her vision blurred; she felt as if she were reeling, falling down a long, dark tunnel. Gasping, she reached out blindly for something, anything, to steady herself.

Her fingers skimmed across the surface of the table and fastened around the necklace. Clutching it, she fell heavily to the floor as everything went black.

Short bio: Elizabeth Delisi is an award-winning author of romance, mystery & suspense. Her books include an ancient Egyptian time-travel romance, LADY OF THE TWO LANDS; and a romantic suspense, SINCE ALL IS PASSING. FATAL FORTUNE is a paranormal mystery, and MISTLETOE MEDIUM and OBSERVANT ORACLE are sequels. Three of her romance novellas are combined in HEART SPELL. She also has a short story collection, THE MIDNIGHT ZONE.

Sean:Kristen is one of the loveliest, bravest,
most honest people I’ve ever met. She shared stuff in a room fulla men… Well,
they say, “You’re only as sick as yer secrets,” and Kristen don’t hold back.

Most
o’ the women I meet are out for what they can get, whether it’s publicity, or
fame or money. Kristen didn’t recognize me when we met. When we went out, she
wouldn’t even let me pay for her dinner because “it wasn’t a date.” When I
tried to buy her a TV for Christmas, she said all she wanted was a CD. Can you
believe that? A fu- a CD! Her TV was a piece o’ crap and a new one woulda been
chump change to me, but she said it “wasn’t appropriate” from a friend. Ladies
like her only come around once in a lifetime if yer real lucky.

Q:What problems do you have to face
and overcome in your life?

Sean:Well, it’s tough staying clean, and it’s
fu-pretty hard to play piano with only one hand. I think I’da offed myself
without Kristen.

Q:Do you expect your hero/ine to
help or is s/he the problem?

Sean:Like I said, I don’t think I’d even be
here if it wasn’t for Kristen.

Q:Where do you
live?

Sean:I got a mansion in Malibu, on a cliff
overlooking the ocean.That’s another
thing. After the accident, when Kristen was helping take care o’ me, she
insisted on payin’ rent! Who does that?

Q:During what time
period does your story take place?

Sean:Time period? Whadya mean? It’s now!

Q:How are you
coping with the conflict in your life?

Sean:For a while there, Kristen kicked me outa
her life. I overstepped her boundaries in a family matter. [Sean holds up his hand in a stopping gesture.] That’s a private
story for Kristen to tell or not. I couldn’t drink or use, and I was hurtin’,
so my sponsor told me to run. I was doin’ a lot
a running, till I got hit by a car. Kristen came back that night, when I was in
the hospital. Now I got her to help me stay sane.

Q:That’s all the
questions we have for you. Thank you for speaking to us.

Sean:Yer welcome. Ya know, I think this is my
first actual sit-down interview since I got clean!

Q:And you talked
more about Kristen than you did about yourself. Is something going on there?

Sean:I guess you’ll have to read the book to
find out.

Blurb:

Kristen Jensen, a Navy veteran, tips
the scale at a crippling three hundred pounds. In desperation she asks her VA
therapist if she can go into addictions treatment with the guys where she meets
Sean. With black hair, blue eyes, and a perfect body she figures the reason
he’s speaking to her is that she’s the only other person in the room.

The Haystack told their lead singer,
Sean Wesley, to get clean or get out. But none of the big-name clinics worked.
Sean’s a Desert Storm vet, so they send him to a VA in the middle of nowhere.
When he meets Kristen the first day, he thinks it’s tragic such a pretty girl’s
trapped in a huge body. And her honesty, intelligence, and bravery are even
more impressing. Sean’s drawn to Kristen, but she’s had decades to build layers
of defense.

Excerpt:They Meet

Sean Wesley went into the snack room
to help himself to coffee and a roll. He’d probably gain weight while he was
here without his personal trainer and weight room. He’d been a fat kid—always
the last to be chosen for games, and stuck in right field when he did play.
He’d been saved from a life of obesity by a growth spurt in his late teens, a
judge who gave him a choice between jail and the Marines, and switching
addictions from food to booze and then cocaine.

By rights, Sean shouldn’t be at a VA
facility. Celebrities like him usually got sober at places like the Betty Ford
clinic or Hazelden. Actually, he’d come from Betty Ford, but he’d still felt
shaky so his manager, Don Nelson, had done his homework. Danville, Illinois,
was in the middle of nowhere. The program was different, based on Rational
Emotive Therapy, and Sean was a veteran. While he made too much money to be
treated at the VA, there’s money and then there’s money. Sean had money—the
kind that opens doors and breaks down barriers. The kind that makes even the
Federal Government say, “We’ll see what we can do,” and then do it.

So here he was in the middle of a
cornfield in bum-f*** Illinois at a shabby old VA hospital. An enormously obese
woman came into the snack room interrupting his reverie, and Sean thought, That could’ve been me. What a shame—she’s so
pretty.”

* * * *

Kristen noticed the table of goodies
and the drop-dead-gorgeous man perusing them in the break room when she went in
there to put her lunch in the refrigerator.

“Want one? I heard they send ’em over
every morning. I guess they’re yesterday’s leftovers.”

That’s
right. Offer sweets to the fat lady.
She managed a tight grimace. “Thanks, but I’m here because I’m a food addict.”
She held up her orange.

“I’m Sean.”

He
prob’ly wouldn’t give a fat chick like me a second look anywhere else. Still,
what is it about men with black hair and blue eyes that makes me go all mushy? “Hi.”

“I’ve heard of food addicts, but what
makes ya call yourself that?”

“When my kids were little, I left them
without a babysitter while I went to the store and wrote a rubber check for ice
cream and M&Ms. I’d say I’ve been about as desperate for my fix as any
addict or alcoholic.”

“Wow! Yeah, I guess so.” He held the
door for her as they exited and then followed her into the Day Room.

Kristen sat on a love seat, taking up
the whole thing, while Sean sat in the chair on the other side of the end table
next to her. They were the only two people in there since there were classes
going on. She was sure the minute other people came out he’d find someone else
to talk to. She pulled out her crocheting. She was fairly certain Eric would
propose to Viki at Christmas and had already begun work on a tablecloth for
them. She worked on it a minute and then decided to be polite. “So, what’s your
drug of choice?”

“I’ve heard that. I was at a halfway house
fundraiser and they said it takes something like over a year for cocaine to
completely leave the body, and during that time a person can still have random
cravings. They were raising money for an extended treatment program.”

“That explains why I’ve been having
such a hard time. I hope this treatment helps.”

“Yeah.”

People started coming into the Day
Room from classrooms just down the hallways. Several of them gave Sean and
Kristen curious looks. Yeah, what’s such a
great looking guy doing sitting with a fat chick?

Bio

Rochelle Weber is a Navy veteran with
a BA in Writing from Columbia College in Chicago. Her novels Rock Bound and Rock Crazy are available in both e-book and print. Her third book,
The Thin Person Inside, is available at MuseItUp Publishing, Inc. Ms. Weber
edits for Jupiter Gardens Press, The Author’s Secret, and publishes the
Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter, winner of the 2013 Preditors &
Editors Readers’ Poll for Best Writers’ Resource. She also started Roses &
Thorns Reviews and currently has two partners.

Ms. Weber battles bi-polar disorder,
quipping, “You haven’t lived until you’ve been the only woman on the locked
ward at the VA.” Her song, “It’s Not My Fault,” won a gold medal in the
National Veterans Creative Arts Competition. She has lost over a hundred pounds
and kept it off for over three years. She lives in Round Lake Beach, Illinois.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

I
love the beach and for me there’s nothing nicer than walk along the beach with
my feet in the water, listening to the sound of the waves crushing along the
shore, and my loved one by my side – hoping to spot a dolphin.

~~Little Beginnings ~~

by
Iris Blobel

“I
suppose it doesn’t hurt to dream sometimes.”

♥♦♥
BLURB ♥♦♥

A blind date that doesn't happen might lead to love.

After her divorce, Jeri Belmont moved to Hobart
and now runs a successful art gallery. When her niece sets her up with a
neighbour, Jeri expects a blind date like the many she’s had. But she never
expected her date wouldn’t even show up because of her age. Despite feeling
unjustly judged, when she unexpectedly runs into him again, she finds it hard
to ignore Ely’s charm.

Ely Lennox knows he
shouldn’t have skipped the blind date because of the lady’s age. After all, it
had only been a date, not a lifetime commitment. When his carpentry business
takes him right to the woman he bailed out on, his guilt turns into regret when
he finds out she’s everything a man could hope for. How can he convince Jeri
that he knows acting so immaturely was a big mistake? Will she ever forgive
him? Or is she hiding behind something else?

♥♦♥LINKS♥♦♥

AMAZON US: http://amzn.to/1SXs5ES

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AMAZON AU: http://bit.ly/1R2vjWd

♥♦♥
MEET THE AUTHOR ♥♦♥

IRIS
BLOBEL

Iris Blobel was born
and raised in Germany and only immigrated to Australia in the late 1990s.
Having had the travel bug most of her life, Iris spent quite some time living
in Scotland, London as well as Canada where she her husband. Her love for
putting her stories onto paper has only emerged recently, but now her laptop is
a constant companion.

Iris resides west of
Melbourne with her husband and her two beautiful daughters.

Next to her job at a
private school, she also presents a German Program at the local Community
Radio.

Jeri Belmont checked the time on her
watch. It was twenty past six, and they’d

agreed to
meet at six.

He
was late!

Steaming
inside, and less than impressed by her blind date, she took another sip of the
Chardonnay as she gazed around the restaurant. Everyone was engulfed in their conversations,
but occasionally one of the patrons glanced at her. She shrugged it off, confident
in sitting on her own in the town’s most elegant restaurant. What she couldn’t
shrug off, though, was her date being late.

She drank the
last little bit of her wine, paid, and left. A deep disappointment settled in
the pit of her stomach, surprising her, because it hadn’t been the first time she’d
been on a blind date that ended with the guy not showing up.

She
suppressed a groan as she thought of the man she’d met only a few weeks earlier.
Admittedly, he’d been nice, but not at all what he’d pretended to be in the details
she received from the “Your Future Heart” agency.

Yet, this
rejection hurt inside. Olivia had told her so much about her neighbour, and
she’d trusted her niece when she’d assured he’d be there.

Olivia was
Georgia’s daughter. Georgia was Jeri’s cousin, but to avoid confusion they all
agreed on Olivia being her niece. Jeri loved Olivia like her own daughter and had
often babysat her when she’d been younger. They’d been to movies, concerts, and
Jeri had even been along to one of her niece’s trips to Melbourne to visit
Olivia’s best friend Mia, who had moved across the Bass Strait.

As Jeri
walked down the streets to her car, she replayed her conversation with her niece
in her mind.

“How are your
blind dates going?” her niece had asked as she came into Jeri’s gallery a
couple of days ago.

She’d
shrugged. “I have a winner’s luck getting hooked up with all the duds in town.”
Jeri remembered hesitating, contemplating whether to speak the words in her head.
Was she destined to live alone
after her divorce? She
wasn’t looking for the man of her dreams, just companionship. Someone to go out
with once in a while.

Someone to
share her day’s highlights or nightmares with.

“You should
meet the guy from next door,” Olivia said. “He’s like sex on legs.

Honestly.”

Jeri let out
a stifled laugh. “Listen, sweetie. I’m in my late thirties, good looking for
that age, but sex on
legs?”

“You just
wait and see,” Olivia said as she looked at her watch. “Anyway, I’d better go.
I’ll give you a call tonight. Prepare yourself for a nice night out with my neighbour!”

That had
basically been it — she’d been set up on a blind date without actually agreeing
to it. In hindsight, she knew she should’ve called it off, but deep inside, she’d
hoped for a nice evening. She’d been most certain that none of Olivia’s friends
were what she was looking for, but then again, she didn’t even know herself what
she was looking for.

“Don’t you ‘look, Trace’, me.” She sighed, and moved to his side. Her
fingers sent tingles upward from where they rested on his arm. “You may be used
to playing the hero for damsels in distress, but that’s not me, okay?” Her eyes
were emerald green, mesmerizing in their brilliance. “I’m used to taking care
of myself. I don’t need coddling.”

No, maybe she didn’t. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use someone to
take the burden away. He wanted to be that someone.

He raised a hand and brushed a velvety soft cheek, reveling in her
body’s response. Eyelids fluttered and lips parted as though waiting for a
kiss. Maybe she didn’t want the fairy tale, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be
her prince.

He leaned down and accepted her invitation.

Heaven.

Her taste reminded him of blue skies and endless meadows. Of songbirds
and bubbling brooks. She was his fire when he got cold and food when he was
hungry. She made him weak, yet superhero strong, all with a look or a touch.
And he couldn’t get enough.

“Take me home with you,” he whispered.

Tracy gazed at him, her eyes conflicted. “We should…”

“What? Slow down? Deny what’s happening between us?” He tunneled his
hand into her hair and cupped the side of her head, relieved when she leaned
into the touch. “I can’t. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past couple
of weeks, it’s that there are no guarantees.”

He leaned forward until their foreheads touched. Until every breath was
shared. Until there was no room for misunderstandings.

“I want you.”

Author Bio:

Jacquie writes Romantic Suspense with tough, alpha males who know what
they want, until they're gob-smacked by heroines who are strong, contemporary
women willing to show them that what they really need is love.

Jacquie has been blessed with a long, happy marriage
and enjoys writing romance novels that end with happy-ever-afters.

She lives in paradise along the west coast of Canada with her family and
loves reading, writing, and flower gardening. Jacquie swears she can't function
without coffee, preferably at the beach with her sweetheart. :)

Follow Jacquie's website below - if you check
out her giveaways page you'll find tons of great prizes every month!